Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	roman_a	rome_n	3,452	5	6.8287	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45214	A defence of the humble remonstrance, against the frivolous and false exceptions of Smectymnvvs wherein the right of leiturgie and episcopacie is clearly vindicated from the vaine cavils, and challenges of the answerers / by the author of the said humble remonstrance ; seconded (in way of appendance) with the judgement of the famous divine of the Palatinate, D. Abrahamvs Scvltetvs, late professor of divinitie in the University of Heidelberg, concerning the divine right of episcopacie, and the no-right of layeldership ; faithfully translated out of his Latine.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Scultetus, Abraham, 1566-1624. Determination of the question, concerning the divine right of episcopacie.	1641 (1641)	Wing H378; ESTC R9524	72,886	191

songs and prayers which were ever used before their sacrifices For before every of their severall sacrifices they had their severall songs still used in those times of peace all which accurately written were transmitted to the subsequent generations from the time of Moses the Legat unto this day by the ministery of the high Priest This Book did that high Priest embezell wherein was contained their Genealogies to the dayes of Phineas together with an historicall enarration of the yeares of their generation and life Then which book there is no history besides the Bookes of Moses found more ancient Thus that ancient Record That there were such forms in the Jewish Church we doubt not but that they should be deduced to the use of the Church Evangelicall to save the labour of their devotions is but a poore and groundlesse requisition Those formes which we have under the names of St. Iames who was as Egesippus tells us the first Bishop and Leiturgus of Hierusalem of Basil and Chrysostome though they have some intersertions which are plainly spurious yet the substance of them cannot be taxed for other then holy and ancient And the implication of the ancient Councell of Ancyra is worthy of observation which forbids those Presbyters that had once sacrificed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to offer or to preach or to serve in the holy Liturgies or administrations Howsoever I perswade my selfe every ingenuous reader finds reason and authority enough in this undeniable practise of antiquity to out-face an upstart conceit of some giddie heads that condemne all formes of prayer be they never so holy because such Now what should a man doe with such sullen and crabbed pieces as these If he crosse them in plaine termes he is false If he comply with them in good words he Rhetoricates What have I professed concerning conceived prayers but that which I ever allowed ever practised both in private and publike God is a free Spirit and so should ours be in powring out our voluntary devotions upon all occasions Nothing hinders but that this liberty and a publique Liturgie should be good friends and may goe hand in hand together and whosoever would forcibly sever them let them beare their owne blame I perceive this is it which these techy men quarrell and dislike that I make the applause of conceived prayer but a vantage-ground to lift up the publique forme of our sacred Church-Liturgy the higher which they are indeed loth should stand upon even termes yea above ground professedly wrangling first at the Originall then the confirmation of it For the first I had said our Liturgy was selected out of ancient modells including in a parenthesis not Roman but Christian and thereby signifying as any ingenuous reader would construe it that our said Liturgie had no relation either to the place or religion of Rome but only to the Christian and holy matter of those godly prayers Now these charitable men fly out into high termes and beseech your Honours to consider How ye may trust these men who sometimes speaking and writing of the Roman Church proclaime it a true Church of Christ and yet here Roman and Christian stand in opposition Ignorantly or maliciously when any man may see here is not an opposition meant but a different modification As when the Prophet sayes I am a worme and no man Or the Apostle It is no more I but sin Or I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Neither is any phrase more common in our usuall speech In what sense we hold the Roman a true Church is so cleared by the unanimous Suffrages of unquestionable Divines that this iron is too hot for their fingers Being then thus qualified our Liturgie needs not be either ashamed of its originall published in King Edwards proclamation or blankt with their unjust aggravation The composers of it we still glory to say were holy Martyrs and Confessors of the blessed Reformation of Religion and if any rude hand have dared to cast a foul aspersion on any of them he is none of the Tribe I plead for I leave him to the reward of his owne merits Thus composed and thus confirmed by the recommendation of foure most religious Princes and our owne Parliamentary Acts they dare not absolutely discharge it but they doe as they may nibble at it in a double exception The one of the over-rigorous pressing of it to the justling out of Preaching and conceived Prayer which was never intended either by the Law-makers or moderate Governours of the Church The other that neither our owne Lawes nor K. James his proclamation are so unalterable as the Lawes of the Medes Persians Which bold flout how well it becomes their gravity and pretended obedience we leave at either Bar. After an over-comprehensive recapitulation of their exploits in this mighty Section they descend to two main Quaere's whereof the first is Whether it be not fit to consider of the alteration of the present Liturgie Intimating herein not an alteration in some few expressions excepted against but a totall alteration in the very frame of it as their reasons import Yes doubtlesse Sirs ye may consider of it it is none of the Lawes of the Medes and Persians What if the weak judgement of K. Iames upon some pretended reasons decreed all forbearance of any farther change What if that silly and ignorant Martyr D r Taylor could magnifie it to B. Gardner and others as complete What if great Elogies and Apologies have been cast away upon it by learned men since that time What if Innovations in Religion be cryed out of as not to be indured yet consider of the alteration Neither need ye to doubt but that this will be considered by wiser heads then your own and whatsoever shall be found in the manner of the expressions sit to be changed will doubtlesse be altered accordingly but the maine fabrick of it which your reasons drive at my hope is we shall never see to undergo an alteration Yet still do you consider of this your projected alteration whiles I consider shortly of the great reasons of your consideration First it symboliseth much with the Popish Masse Surely neither as Masse nor as Popish If an holy Prayer be found in a Roman Portuise shall I hate it for the place If I find gold in the Channell shall I throw it away because it was ill laid If the Devills confessed Christ the Son of God shall I disclaime that truth because it passed through a damned mouth Why should we not rather allow those good prayers which symbolize with all Christian piety then reject those which dwel amongst some superstitious neighbours It was composed you say into this frame on purpose to bring Papists to our Churches Well had it been so the project had been charitable and gracious What can be more thank-worthy then to reclaime erring soules But it failed in the successe Pardon me brethren if it had done so it was neither the fault of

shall consider that Saint Paul was in perpetuall journying from place to place And therfore though now at that instant at Nicopolis yet how soone occasions might call him away and how long hee knew not Therefore it was most fit that he should pitch upon a certaine place whither Titus should direct his way toward him Notwithstanding your ghesse therefore since holy Athanasius plainely tells us that S. Paul wrote this Epistle from Nicopolis and is therein followed by Oecumenius and Theophylact and in that famous ancient Manuscript sent by the late Patriarch of Constantinople I finde it plainly dated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It must needes follow that either this Subscription was before Athanasius and Teclaes time or else that they went upon some other good ground of their assertion Lastly it may well goe for a reason of your owne making that the Post-script stiles Titus Bishop of the Church of the Cretians whereas it would be said of the Churches of the Cretians for the Christian Churches of any Nation are called by Luke and Paul Churches and not Church Who would not yeelde you this truth that the Christian Churches are called Churches What can they bee called else when they are mentioned in their severall diversities but when they are upon some intire Relation conjoyned united as these of Creet under one Government they may well bee called not the Churches but the Church That flash of Wit might well have beene forborne wherein you make an envious Comparison Betwixt the Authority of these Subscriptions and Episcopall authority of urging Subscription to their Ceremonies And why theirs I beseech you Have you beene urged to subscribe to any other Ceremonies than have been established by the Lawes of this Realme Church Was it Episcopall power that enacted them Had you beene but as obedient these Ceremonies had beene equally yours Now out of pure Love you impose that upon us which you repined that the Lawes should impose upon you Goe on thus Charitably prosper Because you wanted Worke from the Remonstrance you will cut out some for your selves An Objection of your owne must be answered That is From the inequalitie that was betweene the Twelve Apostles and the seaventy Disciples And wel may you shape and fashion your owne Answere unto your owne Objection It cannot bee prooved you say that the Twelve had any Superiority over the Seaventy eyther of Ordination or Jurisdiction What have you forgotten brethren that the Apostles ordained the Decons Acts 6.6 by Praier and imposition of hands That the Apostle Paul laid his hands on Timothy Have you forgotten how by vertue of his Apostleshippe hee charges Commands Controllers Censures What is if this bee not Ordination and Jurisdiction But say you suppose it were so yet a superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of different kindes will not prove a superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of the same kinde Deeply argued Surely hence you may inferre that one Bishop is not superiour to another nor one Presbyter above another but that a Bishop should not bee superiour to a Presbyter were an uncouth consequence If the twelve Apostles therefore were superiours to the 70. Disciples and Bishops as your owne Jerome tells you succeed those Apostles and Presbyters come in the roome of the seventy where is that identity or samenesse of kind which you pretend All Antiquity hath acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three severall rankes in the Church-Hierarchy and if you have a minde to jumble them together take away the difference betwixt Presbyters and Deacons as well as that betwixt Bishops and Presbyters Jam sumus ergo pares And now wee appeale to the same Barre how farre you have beene from disproving the Divine right or Apostolicall institution of Episcopacy and whether your relyance upon Hieromes Authority in this poynt hath beene grounded upon any other reason but your owne weak presumption Yet still like as I have heard some beaten Cocks you dare crow and tell your Reader that though Scriptures faile us yet wee support our selves by the indulgence and munificence of religious Princes surely if GOD should have withdrawne himselfe in vaine should wee make flesh our armes Our calling we challenge from God some accessory Titles Dignities Maintenance we thankfully professe to have received from the bountie of Royall Benefactors What of this Herein you say the Author acknowledgeth a difference betweene our Bishops and the Bishops of old Yes verily so hee gladly doth with all humble thankefulnesse to God and good Princes make your best of this concession Suddainly you fall faire and professe your well-pleasednesse with the liberall maintenance of the Church although somewhat yet sticks with you When the Ministery came to have agros domos locationes vehicula as you say from Chrysostome then Religio peperit divitias Religion brought forth riches and the Daughter devoured the Mother and a voice was heard from heaven Hodie venenum and then You tell us of woodden Priests and golden challices But Brethren take no care for this danger our last age hath begun to take sufficient order for the redresse of this Evill and if in time You shall see Wooden Chalices and Wooden Priests thanke your selves However you grant there is not an incompossibility betwixt large Revenues and an humble Sociablenesse yet You say it is rare and tell us That the rich Provision of Bishops hath ushered in both neglect of their Ministery and Pompous attendance and insultation over their Brethren And You instance in the pride of Paulus Samosatenus and shut up with the grave complaint of Sulpitius Severus It is not to be denied Brethren that some such ill use hath beene made by some of their abundance but surely in this ablative age the fault is rare and hardly instanceable both the Wings and train of many of ours have beene so Clipped that there is no great feare of flying high But if it bee so the fault is fixed to the person who with more grace might otherwise improve the blessing Cast your eyes upon others even your owne great Patrons and tell mee if you doe not espie the same ill use of large meanes and flattering prosperity yet you desire not to abridge their store but to rectifie the imployment of it Learne to be so charitable to your spirituall superiors And now at last you give a vale to your Remonstrants Arguments and shut up with a bold recollection concerning which let mee say thus much Truely Brethren had you as good a faculty in strewing as you have in gathering there were no dealing with you but it is your ill hap to tell the reader in your recapitulation of great feates that you have done in your former discourse when as he must needs professe that he sees no such matter I appeal to his judicious eies whether in all this tedious passage you have proved any thing but your owne bold ignorance and absurd inconsequences SECT XIV MY satisfaction to objections comes next to

desires to goe a Mid-way in this difference holding it too low to derive Episcopacy from a merely humane and Ecclesiasticall Ordinance holding it too high to deduce it from an immediate command from God and therefore pitching upon an Apostolicall institution rests there but because those Apostles were divinely inspired had the directiōs of Gods spirit for those things which they did for the common administration of the Church therefore and in that onely name is Episcopacie said to lay claime to a Divine right howsoever also it cannot be gainsaid that the grounds were formerly laid by our Saviour in a knowne imparity of his first agents Now surely this truth hath so little reason to distaste them that even learned Chamier himselfe can say Res ipsa coepit tempore Apostolorum vel potius ab ipsis profecta est And why should that seeme harsh in us which soundeth well in the mouthes of lesse-interessed Divines but because the very title of that book hath raised more dust then the treatise it selfe Bee pleased Readers to see that this very question is in the very same termes determined by that eminent light of the Palatinate Dr. Abrah Scultetus whose tract to this purpose I have thought fit to annex Peruse it and judge whether of those two writers have gone further in this determination And if you shall not meet with convincing reasons to bring you home to this opinion yet at least-wise find cause enough to retaine a charitable and favourable conceit of those who are as they think upon good grounds otherwise minded and whilest it is on all parts agreed by wise and unprejudiced Christians that the calling is thus ancient and sacred let it not violate the peace of the Church to scan the originall whether Ecclesiasticall Apostolicall or divine Shortly let all good men humbly submit to the Ordinance and heartily wish the Reformation of any abuses And so many as are of this mind Peace be upon them and the whole Israell of GOD. AMEN THE DETERMINATION of the question Concerning the Divine Right of EPISCOPACY By the famous and learn'd Divine Dr. Abrahamus Scultetus late Professour of divinity in the Vniversity of HEIDELBERG Faithfully translated out of his Observations upon the Epistles to Timothy and Titus LONDON Printed for NATHANIELL BVTTER 1641 The Question Whether Episcopacie be of Divine right That is whether the Apostles ordained this Government of the Church that not onely one should be placed over the people but over Presbyters and Deacons who should have the power of Imposition of Hands or Ordination and the direction of Ecclesiasticall Counsels THis was anciently denyed by Aerius as is related by Epiphanius in his 75 Heresie and by Iohn of Hierusalem as appears by Hierome in his Epistle to Pammachius And there are not wanting in these dayes many learned and pious men who although they acknowledge Aerius to have erred in that he should disallow of that manner of Ecclesiasticall government which had beene received by the whol World yet in this they agree with him that Episcopall government is not of Divine Right From whose opinion why I should sever my judgement I am moved by these strong reasons famous examples and evident authorities My judgement is this First in the Apostles Epistles the name of Bishop did never signifie any thing different from the office of a Presbyter For a Bishop Presbyter and an Apostle were common names as you may see Act. 20. Phil. 1. v. 1. Tit. 1. 1. Pet. v. 12. Act. 1.20 Next In the chiefe Apostolicall Church the Church was governed by the common advice of Presbyters and that for some yeers in the time of the preaching of the Apostles For first of all companies must bee gathered together before we can define any thing concerning their perpetuall government Then the Apostles as long as they were present or neere their Churches did not place any Bishop over them properly so called but only Presbyters reserving Episcopall authority to themselves alone Lastly after the Gospell was farre and neere propagated and that out of equality of Presbyters by the instinct of the Devill Schismes were made in Religion then the Apostles especially in the more remote places placed some over the Pastors or Presbyters which shortly after by the Disciples of the Apostles Ignatius and others were onely called bishops by this appellation they were distinguished from Presbyters Deacons Reasons moving me to this opinion First Hierome upon the 1. Chapter of the Epistle to Titus writeth that a Presbyter is the same with a Bishop and before that by the instinct of the Devill factions were made in Religion and it was said among the people I am of Paul I of Apollo but I of Cephas the Churches were governed by the common counsell of Presbyters afterwards it was decreed in the whol world that one chosen out of the Presbyters should be placed over the rest From whence I thus argue When it began to be said among the people I am of Paul I of Apollo but I of Cephas then one chosen out of the Presbyters was placed over the rest But whiles the Apostles lived it was so said among the people As the first Epistle to the Corinthians besides other of St. Pauls Epistles puts it out of doubt Therefore while the Apostles lived one chosen out of the Presbyters was placed over the rest Againe There can be no other terme assigned in which Bishops were first made then the time of the Apostles for all the prime successors of the Apostles were Bishops witnesse the successions of Bishops in the most famous Churches of Hierusalem Alexandria Antioch and Rome as it is in Eusebius therefore either the next successors of the Apostles changed the force of Ecclesiasticall government received from the Apostles according to their owne pleasure which is very unlikely or the Episcopall government came from the Apostles themselves Besides even then in the time of the Apostles there were many Presbyters but one Bishop even then in the time of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee that was placed over the rest which afterwards was called Bishop did impose hands or ordaine Ministers of the Word which Presbyters alone did not presume to doe Even then therefore the calling of Bishops was distinct from the Office of Presbyters If any desire the examples of Apostolicall Bishops the books of the antient are full of the Episcopal authority of Timothy and Titus either of which howsoever first performed the office of an Evangelist yet notwithstanding ceased to be an Evangelist after that Timothy was placed over the Church of Ephesus and Titus over the Church of Crete For Evangelists did only lay the foundations of faith in forraign places then did commend the rest of the care to certaine Pastors but they themselves went to other Countries and Nations as Eusebius writes in his third Booke of Ecclesiasticall History and 34. Chap. But Paul taught sometimes in Ephesus and Crete and laid the foundations of